Chapter 13 - Religious Philosophy 101

Merlin led me out of the sleep room and down another corridor, still punching away at his little computer and mumbling to himself. I followed reluctantly. We finally came to a room that looked like it could hold Jonah's whale. The sides of the room were lined with icepods for as far as I could see, and then some. They looked exactly like the ones in the room we'd just left, except that I couldn't see any people in the ones closest to me and all the lids were open. There must have been a hundred rows of sleep pods, and those rows seemed to go on forever.
"Uh . . . Merlin? What am I supposed to do to these?"

"Prepare them for the new arrivals."

"Prepare? How? All of them? There must be a million of em."

"No, only 144,000. It won't take you that long. All you have to do is press the red button on each of them and make sure all the lights on the front panel go on. That means they are cycling up."

"Merlin, why you are doing all of this? I mean, why go through so much trouble? Your people could have found a new planet to live on. Why have you put yourselves through so much, just to bring the truth of a living God to a bunch of illiterate monkeys? Which is what we were when you arrived. And why go through the whole Rapture thing? If you want more people for a colony, you could just suck them up here and carry them to a new planet. Why the big production? I don't get it."

Merlin stopped and looked at me for a moment, like maybe he was trying to figure this out for himself, then slowly he began to speak. "Jordan, remember the short history of our planet that I gave you?"

"Yeah, most of it, anyway. I was hungry then and thinking of food, but I was trying to pay attention."

"Well, I left a few things out. Before we blew ourselves up, we had allowed our civilization to deteriorate. For most of our planet's history we were a very peaceful people. We all believed in the same God, and we never had wars like you do on your planet. We all lived, and loved and were happy. We took care of our own and always helped those less fortunate. Our form of Christianity was never laced with all the taboos your people carried into it. We had a good time and a good life."

Merlin paused and seemed to think about some-thing unpleasant before he continued.
"The original book of Revelations was more specific than yours and not near as cryptic. We had no idea that the people we sent it to on Earth would write it all down in a code that would never be deciphered correctly. They even messed up the simple things, like the story of Amy Geddon on the mountain. You people turned it into the War of Armageddon. In the beginning it was a beautiful story of love and hope and you turned into a bloody battle."

He sounded kind of disgusted with us. I could understand that; we humans even get pretty disgusted with ourselves at times.

"This Amy Geddon? How old is that gorgeous babe?"

"No, Jordan, the original Amy Geddon. This Amy and Goliath are both linear descendants of the originals."

"Oh." That wasn't too hard to believe once you saw Goliath's size.

"On Eden, we were given a specific time that our eternal reward was going to arrive and we kept the faith and worked diligently toward that day. But it never came. We didn't understand why. Some of my people thought our God had died or no longer cared. Some of the people on my planet, no. . . make that most of them, just gave up the faith in the old ways. We became a bitter and unhappy people, determined to get what we could out of life, since our afterlife was no longer guaranteed."

"Thinking back, we should have known it was a test. If our faith had been real, we would have carried on the same as always, waiting patiently for our reward. Even if our God wasn't real, we should have still cared about others and taken care of our planet, rather than turning into a group of power mongers. Eventually, one of the priests who had real faith could stand our heresy no longer. He and his followers set off the nuclear reactors we used for power and turned our planet into a wasteland."

"Gee, Merlin, that doesn=t sound like a very priestly thing to do."

"But it was, Jordan. The priest took his orders directly from God, and in the end, his act restored our faith. That's part of the problem with faith; you never truly understand what it is until you've lost it. All the people who were killed received their just desserts, based on how they lived their lives. No one ever really dies, Jordan. God provides us with a soul that has everlasting life, remember."

My face must have given away my doubts on this matter. I believed, but then maybe I only hoped, and Merlin felt the need to point this out to me.

"You know, Jordan, Christ wasn't kidding when he said you must have the faith of a child. Remember when you were young and believed in Santa Claus?"

"Of course. Everyone believed in Santa Clause."

"Yes, but do you remember how strong that faith was? Even when you got older and people started telling you that Santa was not real?"

"Yeah, I got in a lot of fights with people over that, until my parents sat me down and told me the truth. I was completely devastated and hated them for weeks, until I realized that I would still get presents. I must admit, though, it did take some of the magic out of the season."

"Exactly. To do God's bidding, we must have that kind of faith, no matter what happens. Everything we experience in our lives, all the hardships, all the terror, and all the joy, are all things we need to learn in order to be the best people we can be. God tests us against ourselves all the time."

"But what about wars and disease and car accidents? Does God really make us go through all that?"

"Jordan, we make ourselves go through all that. On your planet there is enough food produced in the United States alone to feed the entire world, but you choose not to. God never told you to fight wars. He told you to love and care for each other.
Most diseases are caused by habits and living conditions. If humans chose to, they could eliminate almost all diseases world wide. Unfortunately, they are too interested in politics and money to actually accomplish anything good. You even have the technology on your planet to stop most car accidents, but you don't do it."

At this, the old man got a sad little smile on his face and shook his head.

"All you really have to do to make God happy is live your life the best that you are personally able to, help others when you can, and love everybody, while condemning no one else for their choices. God sits in the ultimate judgement of us all."

"But what about abortion and homosexuals? The preachers on Earth go on forever about those kind of things," I asked with a shudder.

The thought of two men having sex always made me want to puke. Now two women, that's a whole other story and one that I had always wanted to be part of.

"Promiscuity is wrong, Jordan. Sex should always be for love. Orgasm is probably as close as we ever come in this form to understanding what it really feels like to be one with God. So it doesn't matter who is having sex with whom, as long as it is done with love. As for abortion, I think it may be wrong, but I have no idea what is really in the hearts of the women who have them and I am not allowed to judge them if I want to be true to my beliefs. Besides, the unborn go back to Heaven. You can't destroy life, Jordan, no matter how hard you try. Every death is a happy thing, even when it is caused by a tragedy, because those that die get to be with God and move on to a higher plane. It's a hard thing for those of us on this plane to accept."

"Ok," I said. It was an interesting story he was telling, but I don't know what it had to do with the question I had asked and I didn't really need this much extra info to remember, especially since I was getting really hungry again by now and it was getting hard to keep things straight. This was definitely another stack for the old thinking pile. So I asked my question again, hoping maybe he would get to the point.

"I don't really know if I can believe all that, but you still haven't answered my question about why you are doing all this just to get a few people for a colony."

"We are responsible for the Earth becoming what it is today, even though we did our best to lead you on the path of righteousness. Not that we did a very good job, from the looks of it. We gave you the Bible in hopes that you would succeed in finding true faith where we failed. If we don't fulfill the promises of Revelations, then you will be left hanging the same as us and your civilization would deteriorate even further. We hope that by giving the proper performance, both of our peoples will be redeemed. The colonists will be taken to a new planet and be given the technology to survive and prosper. We are taking the best of you with us, those with the kindest hearts and strongest faiths. Our hope is that by all of us living together, we will be able to create a world that God would be proud of. If we do it well enough, maybe he will even come and talk to us again," Merlin sighed wistfully.

"What about us, if you are taking the best? What hope do we have of becoming a world God would be proud of?"

"We are only taking 144,000 people, Jordan. Out of the billions you have on Earth, that is not even a dent. I didn't say we were taking all of the best."

"But you are leaving all the worst and they seem to have more influence, not to mention power and money."

"No Jordan, we would not do that to you. The G.O.D. computer has been researching the hearts of men for the last few millennia and it knows exactly what to look for to determine which of you are totally irredeemable. Those people will be removed from the planet after the Rapture.

We considered taking them to another planet and dropping them to fend for themselves, thinking maybe they might redeem themselves, but we really don't have enough icepods to accommodate them. Then we considered just beaming them into space, but that would create a litter problem.

The best idea that has been put forward so far is to turn them into fertilizer with the replicators and spread them back over the Earth in places where the soil has been damaged. That way we could at least get some good out of them. That is probably what is going to happen unless the G.O.D. computer has come up with a better idea in the last fifty years."

"Oh. I guess that would be okay. I know there are lots of farms in the U.S. that could use a new infusion of top soil. It has to be better than paying to keep them in prisons."

"So, Jordan, have I satisfied enough of your curiosity? I really need to get back to work. So much to set up and so little time."

"Yeah, you've answered the questions I had and some I hadn't thought of yet. You certainly have given me plenty to think about."

"Well then, I am going back to work and you can get started with those buttons. Remember, only the red ones."

"I know, I know. I'm not totally mindless like you and Lana think I am."

"Actually, Jordan, I think you have been quite brave through this whole ordeal. Not everyone would have reacted as well as you have, after being tossed into the middle of this mess."

With that, Merlin turned and walked out of the room, leaving me speechless and feeling kind of proud of myself.